Designers

What's In It For You

Line a few of them up to work like a coffee table. Use them as bedside tables. Stack one on top of another to serve as an end table next to a sofa. Scatter them around a room or put them outdoors on your deck or patio. Anywhere you need a small surface that makes a big statement.

These useful little tables are now available in three new wood veneers—walnut, white ash, and santos palisander—and in three natural stone options.

A Little Eames

Any interior can be brightened up with a little Eames, and these small tables bear the hallmarks of classic Eames design—the use of welded wire rods in the base and the beveled edge that reveals the essential material beneath the surface. On many of these tables, that material is 13 layers of Baltic birch plywood sandwiched between wood veneer or high-pressure laminate.

Three new natural stone tops are available and have a similar beveled edge. Bases consist of two U-shaped steel rods attached to the top, with cross members for added stability.

Small Wonder

The table's compact size and light weight make it easy to move to wherever you need a small, attractive surface. You can even stack them out of the way when you're not using them.

Design Story

Charles and Ray Eames were always looking for new materials and new ways to create distinctive furniture. In the late 1940s, Charles noted the "fantastic things being made of wire." That fascination led them to experiment with metal wire rods and mesh, and eventually to develop a mass-production technique for simultaneously welding wire rods—an innovation that resulted in many pieces that have become classics of modern design, including wire chairs, plastic chairs with wire bases, storage units, and elliptical tables.

Another result was this compact table, introduced in 1950. Legend has it that these tables were made from material left over from cutting the Elliptical tables out of sheets of plywood. The Eameses used them to conduct chanoyu, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, for special guests, including sculptor Isamu Noguchi and film pioneer Charlie Chaplin. Today these lightweight, diminutive tables stand on their own, next to beds and chairs as an accompanying surface, or on top of each other in a convenient stack.